


Huanted

by shadowkingsoffantasy



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Young Justice (Cartoon), Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Closeted Character, F/M, M/M, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-05 00:29:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16800091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowkingsoffantasy/pseuds/shadowkingsoffantasy
Summary: He realizes just then how well and truly broken his soul is and he wonders; how did it come to this?





	Huanted

**Author's Note:**

> Hi.so. This was sitting in my desktop, I don't know what happened to my mood to make me write it but I wanted to write something sad. It hurts alot. And   
> WARNING : Its left unclear if Wally returns Sucks feelings, and there's implied mental instability
> 
> IF YOU HAVE ANY SUGGESTIONS FOR TAGS PLEASE TELL ME BECUASE I'M HONESTLY NOT SURE ANYMORE.I
> 
> HAPPY READING:)

_**HAUNTED** _

_“I just miss him so so much, it_ hurts _” It hurts like hell, like the minute Wally disappeared a million daggers tore into his heart and they’re still there, they’re_ still _there and he’s still alive. He’s not allowed to die. “ -and I have to get him back Z, because it’s my fault! I have to get him back because he’s not gone. I know everyone says he is but it can’t- I can’t. It’s…its all- I can’t” Zatanna pulls him into her arms, and he cries._

_He realizes just then how well and truly broken his soul is and he wonders; how did it come to this?_

.

If Dick had to say WHEN exactly he'd started falling, he'd say it was the day he first laid eyes on the yellow and red whirlwind with brilliant green eyes. The first time that bright emerald gaze had been trained on him, lighting up as the redhead proceeded to talk a mile a minute. That was when he’d first started falling, he just hadn’t realized it then.

.

Artemis’s death seems to break Wally. He’s devastated by it, of course he is. They all are. Artemis is their friend. Their sister. But Robin knows that Wally is falling apart at the seams, and he knows that the redhead doesn’t even fully understand why. That or he’s in denial, maybe a mixture of both. But the point is, that losing Artemis drives Kid Flash into a tunnel visioned mindset of rage and revenge and the resolution to ‘Get.Her.Back.’ It’s such a ferocious fire that simmers, no, blazes in his emerald eyes. It’s the intensity and the desperation that anyone gets when someone they love is in danger. And Wally loves Artemis, or is at least on his way to being in love with her.

Dick’s chest aches for more reason than one.

He knows, at the back of his mind that they’re gone. All gone, no matter what Wally’s science says. But he doesn't say anything, he keeps this seemingly certain knowledge to himself because they need hope to try and save what’s left of the world. Wally needs hope to keep himself together. He hates seeing Wally like this. Dick is in….

Dick cares about Wally. He didn’t want to lose Wally to Artemis, (to anyone really) but he didn’t want them to be separated like this. Not like this.

Wally isn’t the only one who’s crumbling from the inside, but Dick has to keep it together because there’s a world to save.

.

“You knew” Dick doesn’t let his fingers freeze. “You knew the whole time” In the end it was a statement. Not a question. Not an accusation. Dick is grateful, he doesn’t think he could have handled either of those if he tried. “Six minutes,” he says looking down at the timer on his wrist “Let’s go” Wally follows him, no hesitation.

.

All this time, since the moment Artemis was vaporized in front of them, Robins been on as sort of autopilot. detached and numb to most everything with one single objective; to put the mission first (It’s what Bruce would do) It was like he’s fallen into the sea while he was semi-conscious, aware that he was sinking but not exactly aware enough to know that he should do something. But now, as he watches John grab a protesting M’gann and density shift through the wall of the alien mothership….it feels like he wakes up. It feels like the cold of the ocean water has finally pulled him back to the conscious world, like he’s realized he’s drowning and is struggling and clawing his way back to the surface.

Back to air.

He feels not so numb anymore and the ship is going to explode and they’re going to die, they’re going to die. Panic flows through his veins like it’s his blood. He and Wally are going to die.

Wally.

Wally is going to die.

He looks at his best friend and see’s green eyes behind the goggles, looking at him with so much trust, so much loyalty. There’s love there too. The love of a best friend who has known him for years, who knows every part of Dick past present and who’d definitely have future if they weren’t about to die right now. ‘If you’re going, I’m going’

(That day, those words, seemed like a lifetime ago.)

But he realizes then, suddenly that he has to tell Wally. They’re’ going to get blown to bits soon, and he doesn’t want to die but he also definitely doesn’t want to die without letting Wally know. He opens his mouth, but he words, he’s never said anything related to them out loud, they stay stuck in his throat. For two seconds. For two seconds before he forces them out. “Wally I-“

It’s two seconds too late though.

The bomb, it explodes.

.

Counselling. Ugh. He hates counselling. There’s been mandatory therapy session’s while he was still at the group home after his parents died. He hadn’t been there long, two weeks maybe, before Bruce had taken him in. But he hadn’t been able to escape the shrink.

It’s not like Dick didn’t understand why they needed it (it was obvious they needed it) But Dick didn’t have to like it. But then again, he needed help to sort out the utter disaster (heavy on the dis) that was his head right now. And like hell he was talking to Bruce.

(He can’t tell Bruce. He can’t tell Bruce how he doesn’t know if he can put the mission first. He can’t tell Bruce that almost dying has given him some momentary fucking clarity. He can’t tell Bruce that he doesn’t know what he wants anymore. Where exactly he’s heading. He can’t’ tell him that he’s…Well, if he can’t tell him who he wants to be, he defiantly can’t tell him about who he wants.)

So he tells her. He tells Dinah. About how ever since he became Robin, he’s felt like he had a purpose, and how he’s felt like he had something to work towards. How he always expected to be the batman….and how he doesn’t know it that what he wants anymore.

.

Did what happened count as a near death experience? Was it a death experience? Canary says that it’s a death experience. 100% certified. It may have been a simulation but it was real to them so it was fine and completely understandable for them to be reacting like this. Dick thinks so too. He wakes up screaming more than usual lately.

He should probably talk about it.

.

If Dick had to say when he'd realized he was falling, it was probably the first time Wally (because he knew the Kid Flash was Wally because unlike the bats the speedsters seemed to have few if zero qualms about disclosure of real names within the hero community) held his hand. It was a mission, and he was going to fall and Kid Flash had grabbed his hand, pulling him towards the older teen before racing away from a roof which collapsed mere seconds later. Wrapped up protectively in his (probably best) friends embrace Dicks heart had skipped and started to beat rapidly. Dick knew what a danger induced adrenaline rush felt like. And this wasn’t it. Besides, the warm feeling spreading through his chest and the flutterflies in his stomach?

Yeah, so not adrenaline.

.

He finally tells Dinah.

(About the nightmares. Obviously.)

“It’s the same thing. That moment right before everything explodes. I’m going to tell….I’m talking to Wally and he looks….it’s just the same thing.” She nods, scribbling something on her notepad before looking him in the eye again. Her azure gaze steady and sure. “What were you going to tell Wally?”

He should have expected the question really, as if Black Canary would not catch his little slip. (He can’t believe he made that ‘little’ slip.) The thing is, Dick hasn’t said this to anyone. He barely says the word in his head, he barely acknowledges it himself.

He has feelings for Wally. He wants to hold his hand and run his fingers through the bright orange hair.

But he doesn 't let himself think about it, if that makes any sense. Because thinking about it would make it real, would make it more tangible and make it more obvious. He’s scared. He’s not sure why. It’s nothing wrong….it’s nothing wrong. He’s still a person. He’s still Robin. He’s still Dick Grayson it’s just…

He takes a deep breath.

“I’m gay.”

“That’s perfectly fine.”

Silence.

There’s a long silence which Dinah finally breaks. “Dick, Wally’s your friend, you should tell him” The maniac sound that tears through the stillness of the room seems to startle even the Black Canary. Dick realizes it’s him laughing, cackling hysterical and bitter.

‘Tell him, yeah right.’

.

Dick has considered telling Wally who he is many times over, debating whether facing Bruce’s wrath is worth it.

Dick had also considered telling Bruce, about...him. Not being....

Again, he isn’t sure if Batman’s (probably negative right?) reaction is worth it.

It’s at times like this that Dick is keenly aware that he is not officially adopted.

.

When he closes his eyes he can still see the fire, feel the heat before the deafening sound of a blast. He remembers that day years ago at the circus, watching his parents fall, and imagines that he looks like them too as he falls when the floor breaks apart. He reaches for Wally, whose eyes are bright with fear. He loses sight of his best friend in the smoke. A second later there’s pain and the final crack of his skull. He remembers how painfully warm it was before the end.

Dick wakes up (screaming again) sweat covering his body and his heart beating as fast as Wally’s. He knows he’s safe, it was a dream. Everyone’s alive.

But the fear, the desperation the regret still cling to him. The blind terror of those last moments traps him in its clutches. His eyes close tiredly as he falls back onto his pillows with a groan. Green eyes flash behind his lids. He thinks of bad puns and fabric softener and pale skin mattered with constellations of freckles and his heart beat slows.

He knows now, he has to tell Wally.

.

They’re sitting on the roof of the manor, so close their thighs are pressed up against each other. Wally radiates warmth, which Dick appreciates greatly. Evident in the way he snuggles closer to his best friend to fend off the biting chill of the Gotham night. The sky is a blanket of blue-black, mostly covered by white and grey clouds. The light pollution makes it hard to see stars, so the brightest thing in the sky is the moon. It’s been a week since that disaster of a simulation.

Dinah says he should tell Wally, and the nightmares he keeps having, of that moment, that moment where he nearly tells Wally but hesitates too long? Yeah. Dick has started to agree with her. He’s been stewing in lists of pros and cons for what seems to be the slowest week of his life, wondering if it was even worth it. Wally was straight, he couldn’t return his feelings.

[Dinah says that he shouldn’t assume things about his friends, especially considering that Wally probably has the same assumptions about him. But he reminds her that A) Wally makes it as obvious as the sun that he’s into girls, unlike Dick who doesn’t really talk about it at all and B) He’s partner top the world’s greatest detective.] (Yeah okay so Bruce was blind to things that were right in front of him but Dick is going off topic now-

On the pro side, Wally was his best friend and one of the best people Dick knows. Possibly the best. He wouldn’t hate Dick for being...gay. Yeah it might be awkward at first but Wally wouldn’t drive him away just because he liked guys would he? Also, Dick has been keeping this secret for years. All the insecurities and fears he has have been locked up inside him and shoved to the back of the metaphorical closet (ha) so even if Wally couldn’t return is feelings, at least he’d have his best friend to talk to.

At least someone (other than Canary) would know.

Dick steels his nerves, takes a deep breath and waits two seconds. (He thanks god for those two second. He regrets those two seconds. Why is it always two damn seconds?) He’s about to break the silence but Wally beats him to it.

“I think I like Artemis.”

Well then, that was that.

Dick looks up at the redhead, ignoring the crack in his heart, the fissures in his soul as he smirks at his best friend (his bestfriend) “Took you long enough,”

Dick never stood a chance anyway.

.

Dick wakes up and remembers what day it is. November 11th. Wally’s sixteenth birthday. For a few seconds he lets himself be miserable. Sixteen seemed like a wall. A clear separation which put them on two different sides of life. Even more out of Dick’s league than the speedster already was. Dick knows he’s being dramatic. He just… needs a few more minutes to wallow in self-pity before he locks those stupid feelings away and heads down to the cave to help set everything up for Wally’s surprise party. Dick snorts at the word ‘surprise’, like kid idiot hadn’t been hinting for weeks.

.

Dick knew that he fell the day Wally found out who he was.

One of Bruce’s tactics of distancing Bruce Wayne from Batman was to chalantly roast the Dark Knight now and then. He obviously expected the same from Dick Grayson. Dick, ever the troll found it amusing. There was just something about insulting your alter ego and watching people agree without knowing that they’re being played that the boy wonder found a slightly sick sort of hilarity in.

It was even funnier to watch people who liked Robin get defensive.

“Dick Grayson is such a dick!” Wally huffed as he slammed a paper down on the kitchen countertop. They were at Wally’s place, Dick had been here several times over the past few months (wearing is dark glasses of course) but still. He felt more than welcome in the West-Allen household, as comfortable as he did at the manor.

(Sometimes, even more so than the manor)

Suppressing a snort, Dick gave a disinterested noise of acknowledgment and continued to munch on a cookie. “Seriously I mean what is his problem? I bet he doesn’t even know anything about what Gotham’s like outside his cotton wrapped bedroom! I just-ugh” Wally slumped further into his seat. Something that Dick found endlessly endearing about Wally was how no matter how smart he was he seemed to lose his words when he was angry enough over something that meant a lot to him.

Dusting off the crumbs on his jeans, Dick reached over and picked up the [paper Wally had just been reading, skimming over the article. He didn’t need to of course, he knew what was in it. It was a coverage of an interview in which Dick had voiced his opinion about Robin. Saying that ‘Gotham didn’t really need a kid running around in a Halloween costume, that’s what the police are for’ following up with a comment meant to solidify his spoiled rich kid persona ‘Besides doesn’t he have something more important to do? Like play video games or something?’

He’d only get to act this ignorant for a little while longer, in another year or so his comments were supposed to be slightly more mature to keep public favor.

“He’s not that bad,” Dick said. Wally looked up at him with an adorable frown. “Not that bad? Rob he’s a brat! You do so much for that city and he does bat shit-“ “Terrible pun” Dick interjects snickering. Wally glares, his face all serious. “Dude. How are you not the least bit upset? After everything you do-it’s just not fair!” Honestly Dick is touched that the teenager, who he’s sure is his best friend, is so offended on his behalf. It makes this stupid honey warm feeling flow through his veins.

(It makes his dreadfully aware that he wants to know everything about Wally. It makes him painfully aware that he wants Wally to know everything about him. He knows that every time he thinks of how protective and defensive Wally is being, a storm of cherry blossoms will flutter around his rib cage. He knows he’s fallen. Hard.)

It’s funny too. It’s also the perfect chance, here in the safety of the West-Allen house, with his best friend, while they’re on the topic to bring it up. To say…something. To say ‘Tadaaa I’m Dick Grayson!’

(Or ‘Tadaa! I’m Gay!’ or ‘Tadaa! I’m half –totally- in love with you!’)

The last two are a definite ‘no no’ and Wally’s looking at him expectantly. It’s then that he realizes that he’s been silent too long, that Wally has straightened up like he knew that Dick wanted to say something. Dick does want to say something (but admitting the latter two options just seem a lot scarier than Batman right now) so…

“Well it is pretty funny to watch people get mad over things I say about myself.”

Silence.

“WHAT???!!!”

.

Wally’s face falls a bit as Miss M gives him a peck on the cheek. He’d obviously been hoping for a kiss on the mouth, and while his dramatic disappointment is usually funny to watch, Dick has to look away this time. Dicks envy’s M’gann really, kissing Wally on the cheek is more than he can ever dream of doing. He ignores the vicious weed of jealousy that curls around his ribcage, he denies the way it seems to try to choke his heart as he heads towards Zatanna.

.

Zatanna is…. Zatanna is wonderful.

Smart, pretty fun and sweet. She’d totally be his type if she had a y chromosome. But she doesn’t. Dick wishes she did, because then maybe he’d have a chance at getting over Wally.

He doesn’t know why he’s so hung up on Wally, he doesn’t know why no one seems to be better than his best friend. He’s Dick Grayson for fucks sake! Bruce Wayne’s freaking ward! He knows he could have anyone he wanted, and he knows that while it might be slightly harder to find them at first there’d totally be more than enough guys who’d want to date him. He just…didn’t want to date them. Sure he thought Tristan Whitehall from school was hot, and Conner definitely wasn’t hard on the eyes. He just didn’t… like any of them as much as he liked Wally. He could imagine kissing them dirty up against a wall (ok slow down there hormones) but he couldn’t imagine taking them to watch Infinity War part II and holding their hand and sharing popcorn while crying about how Loki and Bucky deserved better. No matter how many times he tries to think about it, no matter who he starts the day dream out with, it always ends with him walking out of the theater with a redheaded with green eyes and an appetite that should leave him broke.

So he knows it’s wrong, he knows it’s a dickish (ha-okay not cool) move to lead anyone on. But he lets himself fall into an easy flirty banter with the magician. It’s a distraction, it’s a lie and ruse to make everyone see him as someone he’s not, but it’s effective. Their natural back and forth is more than believable.

(Maybe if he tries hard enough he can make himself believe it too?)

.

There's a call on the police radar for a shooting in the Red Light district of Gotham. ETA for Batman and Robin is ten minutes. The club, like most club is filled with glitter and lights and the smell of alcohol. But now there's also blood and the sound of bullets.

They sneak in through the back door, and Bruce sticks to the shadows, using them as cover to get a drop on the gunman. While he’s distracted (having the fear of god instilled in him by the mere sight of Batman) Robin gets the jump on him, a well-aimed blow to the head and he’s out like a light.

There were twenty five dead, ten in critical condition and 50 wounded. They're on a rooftop on the building next to the club, ‘Velocity’, looking down as the cops and the paramedics usher people around and get them into ambulances. Dick wonders what the shooting was supposed to be about, if there was anything or if it was just one of those....one of those people who just felt like doing it. He sees a man, tall and skinny with purple dyed hair run into the arms of another man, slightly shorter but just as skinny with blonde hair. They kiss, and suddenly Dick notices. He feels stupid for not having put it together before. Or maybe he's just been in denial. 'Huh' He thinks as he swallows the bile that’s suddenly risen to his throat. 'So that’s what the shooting was about....'

He feels numb.

Like he's on morphine.

He wonders if Bruce knows, which is dumb because 'hello robin' BATMAN probably noticed that it was a gay bar, probably knew going in. He wonders if Bruce minds….

He still saved those people right? That means that he doesn’t care if they’re…he doesn’t care who they like. He still sees them as people. Right? (Because they are people, who they like doesn’t change that)

“Robin,” Batman’s voice is sharp but the hand on his shoulder is gentle. It still makes the boy wonder jump. He swallows and avoids what he knows is an inquisitive look under the cowl. “Are you alright?” Bru- Batman, asks. Dick realizes his throat has gone dry when he tries to swallow. He gives a jerky nod, glancing down at the scene below them one final time before standing up. “Peachy,” he says.

He grapples away before Batman can answer.

.

Dick tries not to look. Tries to ignore the way his stomach drops. Tries to pay no attention to the spike of jealousy that spears through his foolish heart as Wally lifts Artemis up into his arms. Bridal style. It’s a foreshadow if Dick ever saw one.

“Should’ve done this a looong time ago,” Wally says, his voice is teasing but his eyes are soft and affectionate as he looks at the blonde archer. Dick forces a smirk onto his lips as Artemis (his teammate, his friend, his sister, the person Dick wishes he was) –wraps her arms around Wally’s neck. She grins, a fond look on her face. “No kidding,”

They kiss.

The image, and the feeling of the little flame of hope he’d held onto being snuffed out sear themselves onto Dicks mind. He keeps smiling.

He feels a hand wrap around his wrist and a few seconds later Zatanna’s lips are on his. He makes a muffled noise of surprise before closing his eyes and wrapping his arms around her waist. He pushes away the feeling of ‘wrongwrongeewww??’ He’s supposed to be straight and he’s been flirting with this girl for months. Besides, Wally is in a lip lock with Artemis right now and he kind of really doesn’t want to see it. He kisses back. He may or may not pretend it’s someone else.

.

Zatanna is the one who break ups with him. It’s clean and simple and she gives him a sad smile and a “It’s just not working.” There a look in her eyes that tells Dick that she knows why. She knows.

Artemis and Wally are still going strong.

.

For a guy who has zero interest in women, Dick dates a lot of them.

After Zatanna was Rachelle, then Kori and then some even more meaningless flings with a few random girls at school. Dick is eighteen, a year and a few months into being Nightwing the first time he kisses a guy.

He was having an off day, getting coffee and breakfast from this tiny little shop which was ten minutes away from his place. He was taking his mug of black caffeine to his table to wait for his order when he nearly toppled over another patron. The guy was about Dick’s height, copper colored hair and brown eyes, clear pale skin and long lashes. He was wearing a Ravenclaw jacket and a blue shirt that read ‘if magic was a person I’d date them’, sweatpants and he blushed all the way up to the tips of his ears when Dick flashed him an apologetic smile. The attention was interesting, gratifying in a way that Dick hadn’t felt before because in all honestly this was the first time he was actually interested back. He smirks, “Hey, sorry about that. I’m magic,” He says.

The guy looks confused for all of five seconds before Dicks words seem to click, he huffs out a laugh but still flushes prettily. The rest of their first and last date is pretty downhill from there. Over the course of the following hours Dick learns that Shawn’s out and proud and realizes then and there that this isn’t going to be more than a onetime thing. There’s also the fact that even if Shawn agreed to being secretive about a relationship, a whole lot of problems would come up with the gazillion things about his life that he couldn’t tell a normal civilian. And then there’s Wally and well….Shawn’s the first guy who’s taken obvious interest in Dick, and Dicks not dumb, he recognizes a potential rebound when he sees one. Shawn doesn’t deserve that. But really, those are all thoughts for later, when he’s not being pushed down onto a bed.

He dates Babs for a while. She’s the last one though.

.

Wally shows up at his crappy Blüdhaven apartment at three in the fucking morning. Dicks annoyed as he opens the door, but his mood does a 180 from grouchy to concerned and ready to kill whoevers responsible for making Wally look so miserable. The redhead’s whole posture screams defeat, his eyes and red rimmed and puffy and he looks so so sad. He says;

“I think Artemis and I just broke up,”

Dick shouldn’t feel even the least bit relieved, but he is. He hates himself for it, he hates himself so much. He opens the door and ushers Wally in, seating him down on the couch as he heads to the kitchenette to pull out two tubs of ice cream from the freezer. He stomps down on his treacherous feelings, blaming them on the fact that he’s just gotten back from patrol and had gotten one hour of sleep before Wally came knocking. He gives Wally the tubs of mint and choc and cookie cream and puts on a movie.

.

Wally and Artemis are on ‘break.’ Wally’s been depressed for the past two weeks and Dick can’t help the slight (Large) dislike he has for Artemis right now. Above all else, he’s still Wally’s best friend and he hates to see him hurting like this. There’s only one solution, to get Wally out of the house and get his mind off of his (ex?) girlfriend. He’d get Wally drunk, but Wally’s metabolism burns through alcohol like supeys heat vision burns through plastic. However, there’s always the option of making him feel mentally drunk by taking him to a place where he can be surrounded by other drunk people (which is actually kind of what he plans on doing) So Dick throws a nice shirt and some ripped jeans Wally’s way and tells him they’re going out.

.

Dick may hate College, but he knows a lot of people there. He has ‘friends’ who like to invite him to their frat parties with the invitation to ‘bring a date or something’. Dick is used to not thinking about how genuine these people are, instead having made it instinct to keep them at just the right distance. But anyway, it isn’t hard to find a place with booze and music so loud it reverberates through his chest.

After nagging him the whole way to the party and then for a few minutes after they arrive Dick manages to drag the speedster onto the dance floor. Wally dances like he does most things, clumsy but full of unabashed energy. Under the flashing lights of the disco ball, Wally looks (beautiful, gorgeous) loose and carefree, better than he had for the past two weeks, like he was actually alive and having fun. Dick congratulates himself on at least being able to give Wally that, for being able to be there for him and be a good friend.

Eventually they move away from the makeshift dance floor and Dick goes to find something that’s not spiked to drink. He returns about thirty minutes later (how did this many people fit into one apartment? Like how?) -with two cups of water in hand, to find Wally, his best friend since he was like-ten, his crush since he was twelve pushes up against a wall and making out with some random guy. A GUY.

Dick’s brain stops working. He drops the cups and runs.

This could not be happening. Wally was straight. Wally was straight. Wally is straight. He’d only ever been interested in girls, only ever dated girls. Wally was probably just drunk (The surprisingly still functioning rational side of Dicks brain supplies that Wally literally cannot get drunk- needless to say he ignores it)

Half an hour later he gets a text. From Wally.

So like I’m going home with someone, down wait up…unless ya know; )

Maybe Dick is drunk.

.

Needless to say he doesn’t get any sleep that night. He’s too awake waiting. Waiting for the next day, for Wally to come home so he can get answers. God does he need answers. His head might implode if he doesn’t get them soon.

When Wally does come back (he’d been crashing with Dick while he and Arty were on break) Dick makes himself wait. He makes himself just give Wally teasing smug looks, enjoying the way the redhead blushes, to the tips of his ears and down his neck (which is littered with a trail of small red marks).

When he finally does ask, he gets a non chalant reply about how while Wally’s mostly always ever been attracted to girls, last night was fun. Being with a guy was fun (and hot) and he wouldn’t mind trying it again. And Dick, Dicks whole world just turned upside down because his best friend not only seems completely cool with dudes liking other dudes, but he seems to kind of like dudes too.

This might have been the perfect time to tell him. If not about his feelings, then about his sexuality. It would have been the perfect moment to tell Wally about how he’s gay, how he dated so many girls just to try to NOT be, and how even though now he’s accepted it, and does get with a guy every once in a while…how he’s always been scared to say anything. He doesn’t say anything even then though. He, like an idiot, decides he needs to think. He knows now that Wally will accept him, and that’s a huge weight off his shoulders. He feels like one of the bands which had had a death grip around his chest for years has loosened, though it hasn’t disappeared completely.

(And this feeling which he knows damn well is hope starts bubbling in his chest.)

.

Dick spends the next week psyching himself up to tell Wally, not just about him but the feelings he’s had for his best friend since forever as well. He spends a week wasting time and he’ll hate himself for it forever later. A week later Artemis and Wally make up. And Dick tells himself that it was better this way, Artemis and Wally had always seemed to be written in the stars. They’d always seemed like the endgame.

.

The day Wally tells Dick that he and Artemis are retiring is one of the worst days of his life.

.

Wally’s mad at him. Dick doesn’t blame him. He’d be mad if someone messed up his perfect domestic life too.

He looks angry, so so _angry._

Dick can see it in his eyes. It was like electricity sparked within the green orbs, Dick had seen Wally livid many times over the course of their friendship. At villains. At Bruce. At Sports master. But… Dick realizes with a pang in his heart that that anger had been directed at him with increasing frequency over the years.

(Worse, Dick is pretty sure he’d earned it. This time he _definitely_ had. He’d called Artemis in for a mission, knowing through Wally that the archer occasionally missed the rush that came with mask.)

Wally’s- not exactly yelling, but he’s being very obvious and vocal- about how upset he still is about it. About everyone thinking that his girlfriend was dead. About being brought back into this life of masks and secrets and danger.

The speedster finally seems to exhaust his rage, his body sags. Shoulders slumping in defeat. When he speaks, his voice is bitter and disappointed. There’s an underlying tone of accusation and betrayal there too, and it tears at Dick’s heart to know that it’s directed at him. By his best friend, who had at one point in their lives been willing to follow him to the ends of the earth.

“You know, that night? When she told me you had called? I was going to ask her.” As always, dick doesn’t let himself freeze. “What?”

Wally looks up from where he’d been looking at his hands, his gaze meets Dicks head on as if he knows that he and the former Robin are locking gazes even through the mask.

“I was going to ask Artemis to marry me…”

A traitorous, selfish, _ugly_ part of him is glad that he threw a wrench in those plans. He’d a terrible friend.

.

Dick knows deep down inside that Wally’s gone, long before Dinah tells him.

(He’ll later wonder why it was she who ended up telling him, why it wasn’t Batman or Flash or anyone else really. Later he’ll think its maybe because of the way his legs gave out from underneath him, leaving him to fall to his knees like a puppet whose strings had been cut. He thinks maybe it’s because she is the only one who knows, who he has told. Because she is the only one Dick could feel remotely comfortable with while he cries over the gaping tear in his heart. He thinks maybe the rest of the league knew that too.)

.

He overhears M'gann telling Kon that Wally’s last words to Barry had been to tell Artemis and his parents that he loved them. Dick tells himself that _of course_ they were the people that were on Wally’s mind. He loved them the most. Or Wally probably didn’t exactly have time to list out his last words for everyone he ever cared about. Dick doesn’t blame him. But he wishes there had been something for him too. Something (anything) that would ease the pain of Dick’s last memory of Wally being that of the two of them fighting. Something to help make what remained of their friendship seem less old and broken.

.

The holo-monument of Wally doesn’t do him justice. It doesn’t capture the vibrancy, the _energy_ that had seemed to be a part of every single one of Wally’s cells. It doesn’t capture how full of life the speedster had been, any more than the tears that slide silently down Dicks cheeks, or the sobs that wracked his body, or the screams that he muffled into his pillows express how utterly desolate Nightwing actually feels inside.

“I love you Wally,”

It’s the first time he’s said the words out loud.

No one’s around to hear them.

( _Wally will never hear them.)_

_._

He feels like he just walked into the ocean. Like he’d walked so far that the cold water had gone from lapping at his ankles, to pooling around his waist to covering his shoulders and now finally engulfing him. Drowning him. He feels like he’s falling through water. Further and further away.

(There’s no Wally to drag him back up.)

It’s so quiet

(or maybe he just can’t hear anymore, maybe his body just _can’t_ function anymore.)

He can’t breathe.

The worst part is, it’s his fault.

He walked into the ocean.

.

“I need a break Kaldur,” _I can’t do this anymore._ “Me, you and Wally….We founded this team” _Wally and I used to be a team_ “Without him….” _…I don’t know who I am without him…_

Kaldur says ‘I understand.’

Dick knows that Aqualad is really too smart to deserve the ‘no you don’t’ that he really wants to throw at him. So he just nods.

.

Dick dreams a lot these days.

Sometimes he dreams of memories. Of walking through the park in Central with Wally, eating hotdogs and ice-cream while listening to the teenager ramble on about school and girls and science. Those dreams are warm and nostalgic, filled with the warmth of childhood. Almost a lifetime ago.

.

The first time he sees Wally again is two weeks after he had ‘died’. He’s walking home from the grocery store when he catches something in the corner of his eyes. He turns to look at freezes. It’s Wally. It’s Wally who’s alright and alive and wearing a sweater and jeans and he’s smiling and waving and Dick blinks back tears and then he’s gone.

.

Dick takes a while to accept that Wally’s gone. Or rather Dick takes a while to stop objecting to people telling him Wally’s gone, because if he’s being honest with himself- Dick will _never_ truly think that Wally’s gone.

(And no, it doesn’t have anything to do with how he hears his best friend’s voice in the middle of the night, when his apartment is dark and quiet. It has nothing to do with how Dick pays Wally’s phone bill so that he can keep calling it even if only to hear his best friends voice in voice mail. It has nothing to do with how sometimes he thinks he see’s flashes of red and yellow around the corner of the street. Dick is not going crazy. He thinks.)

It’s just.

Wally’s not gone. He’s not. Yes there’s a hole in Dicks heart where Wally used to be, but that’s just because everyone thinks he’s dead. Just because Dick can’t see him right now, it doesn’t mean that he’s gone. Dick _knows_ that he’s not gone.

He spends his first year off the team running himself ragged looking for Wally. Trying to figure out what happened to Wally. He doesn’t let Babs or Tim or Roy or Alfred or Bruce know. Because if they did they’d try to stop him. And Dick can’t let them do that. Because if he stops. If he stops-

(- The shredded pieces of his heart will burn to ash only to be scattered by the winds. If he stops believing in Wally, he feels like he’ll stop believing. Period.)

.

Sometimes he dreams of things that he could have done differently. How he could have not hesitated during that simulation, how he could have told Wally then. How he could have not let them drift apart. These dreams are wishful, things that might have happened. Maybe. They’re bitter sweet.

.

Wally follows him around the apartment, he’s right by Dicks side, (this time wearing his red flash hoodie and shorts) – as he pours through research. He just stands there and smiles and every time Dick looks at him he feels like crying. So eventually Dick has to stop looking.

.

The other dreams are not so nice. They’re of Wally disappearing in a whirlwind of ice and lighting. They’re of Dick running through the darkness chasing the sound of Wally’s voice. These dreams make Dick wake up in the middle of the night, ice flowing through his veins and tears streaking down his face.

What all of them have in common Is that they push dick to search harder.

.

One night, when Dick’s brain can’t process anything thanks to an entire week on zero sleep and caffeine, he decides to take a nap. Not fall asleep on the table but actually make a conscious effort to sleep. He lies down on the bed- he feels like he hasn’t slept there in _years_. He closes his eyes, only to hear an eerily familiar laugh. It’s a laugh that had warmed his heart and made him think that he’s do anything to hear it throughout is teen years. It was a laugh that made everything worth fighting for. It was a laugh that he’d missed dearly for months, one that he was trying his hardest to get back. He bolts up in bed, to see Wally standing at the end. He’s wearing the flash pajamas he’d had as a kid, which he out grew years ago. Wally smiles at him. But he doesn’t make a sound.

Dick is tiered, so he lies back down to try and get a few hours’ sleep. He needs it. He closes his eyes, only to hear Wally laugh again. He opens his eyes, and Wally is still looking at him, smiling. The laugh rattles something in what’s left of Dick’s heart. He feels guilty lying there, trying to sleep when he should be looking for Wally. But he’s gone well beyond his limits. He needs to sleep…He knows he doesn’t deserve it but he can barely think straight. “I need to get some rest Walls,” Dick mumbles, exhausted. Wally just smiles and stays where he is.

Dick is nearly asleep when he hears the laugh again. He bolts up again, to see Wally standing there still.

He continues to stand there all throughout the night. And every time Dick is on the edge of sleep his ‘dead’ best friends laugh wakes him up again. It repeats.

(Until dawns first rays peek thought the curtains, making the tear drops that cling to dicks lashes sparkle.)

(Dick doesn’t try to sleep in a bed again.)

.

Wally’s not always there, but whenever Dick starts falling asleep while working and going over data he sees him in the corner of his eye. Smiling. He wakes right back up, guilt flooding through his veins as he makes himself coffee and gets back to work.

.

His family, his _entire family,_ was made up of fucking detectives. Not to mention basically everyone he knew was a superhero. Dick knew it was only a matter of time before someone caught up to what he was doing. 

He didn’t expect it to be Zatanna. He doesn’t know why.

They’re friends, definitely. It’s just, he hasn’t really kept contact with the team lately. And he’s assumed, with the silence on their part as well that they’d inferred that he wanted to be alone for a while (that they blamed him.)

He’d gotten up in the middle of the night, pulled from sleep by another nightmare. There was a kink in his neck from sleeping on his excuse for a couch. He’d walked over to his desk, littered with papers and a board on top with various pieces of information. About the reach. About the speed force. About time travel and other dimensions. With the amount of research Dick had been doing for the past year he could get a PhD in quantum physics…

His brain was running in circles (Wally had been running in circles) and yes he realizes he’s not thinking straight (Ha!) –especially if he’s laughing at that pun. He’s just…so tiered. But he can’t sleep. Dick sighs and sits down, turning on his laptop. The screen is blurry, and he has to blink several times.

That’s the last thing he remembers before there’s a hand gently shaking him awake. He’s slow to come to, which is testament enough to how exhausted he is, because for as long as Zatanna had known him the boy wonder had been a light sleeper. Hell, the fact that he hadn’t noticed her enter the apartment-magic or not- was a giveaway enough.

Tiered blue eyes look up into Zatanna’s, squinting in the midday light that has filtered through the curtains. “Z?” Dick rasps, his voice rough with sleep. Zatanna gives him a hesitant smile, her eyes darting over to the laptop, which is playing the last footage of _that day_ on loop. “Hey,” she replies softly, her hand still on his shoulder. Dick groans and scrubs a hand over his face as he sits up. “What’s up?”

Zatanna presses her lips into a thin line. “I just came to check on you…it’s…been a while. You didn’t answer the door so….I let myself in.” She pauses before continuing. “You were having a nightmare.” Dick avoids her gaze and remains silent, unsure of what to say. There’s no point in trying to deny it, any of it. Whatever it is. The evidence covers an entire wall of his dingy little apartment.

The sorceress drags a chair up to sit in front of him. She places her hand over his. She doesn’t say anything. Neither does he.

The silence is oppressive.

Dick has been alone for a year. He’s been alone, falling farther and farther into his own head. He’s hidden it so well, from Bruce who he barely sees, from Tim and Babs who he actively avoids. But he can’t hide from Zatanna, for the simple fact that she’s caught him off guard.

And he’s lonely.

Dick doesn’t like b being lonely. Over the years he’s gotten used to having family and friends to leans on, friends who are like family to support him. Even when Wally and he weren’t on the best of terms the speedster was still… _there._ But after he’d….after….Dicks just been so alone. He knows it’s his own fault. But he thinks now, in retrospect, he did it to himself on purpose, because he deserved it. Didn’t he? Wally had died because of him hadn’t he? He’s the one who convinced Artemis to come out of retirement, and it wasn’t like he hadn’t known that Wally wouldn’t follow….

It’s not like that hadn’t been what he had wanted.

(But this, _this….._ he had never wanted this.)

Like every other time he thinks like this, like every other time he lets these thoughts float around his head he sees red and yellow in the corner of his eye. He swallows and squeezes his eyes shut. He rarely looks anymore anyway. He can’t bring himself to look, he doesn’t know why. Maybe he’s afraid there’ll be nothing there. (Maybe he’s afraid they’re will be something.)

He doesn’t want Wally to be gone. He doesn’t want to believe that Wally’s gone.

….But he can’t do this. He can’t keep living like this.

He opens his eyes and raises them to look into Zatannas kind sky blue gaze. Her eyes are open and understanding and concerned. He wants to speak, but he’s never really been good at telling people how he feels. How is he supposed to tell her that he’s been seeing Wally out of the corner of his eye for an entire year? How does he tell her that he hears his voice sometimes, when everything else is quiet? How does he tell her that he can’t bring himself to look sometimes, because he’s afraid that one day he’ll look and he won’t be there? 

(How does he tell her that he knows that he’s not there?)

She squeezes his hand and looks at him encouragingly.

There’s still yellow and red in the corner of his eye.

“I can see him.” He chokes out. “I can see him, he’s always there. He’s _right there_ Z!” Dick says, his voice hysterical as he points to the empty space on his right. His hands shake and his vision is blurry. “I can hear him too, I hear his laugh and I-“ He’s breaking. “I just miss him so so much, it _hurts”_ It hurts like hell, like the minute Wally disappeared a million daggers tore into his heart and they’re still there, they’re _still_ there and he’s still alive. He’s not allowed to die. “ -and I have to get him back Z, because it’s my fault! I have to get him back because he’s not gone. I know everyone says he is but it can’t- I can’t. It’s…its all- I can’t” Zatanna pulls him into her arms, and he cries.

Wally smiles and waves before he walks out of the room.

Dick doesn’t see him again after that.

.

“There’s a metahuman trafficking syndicate in Markovia that we can shut down with your help,”

.

“Prince Brion Markov, the crown prince of Markovia has been increasingly rebellious and unpredictable since his sister Tara’s disappearance. It seems like he doesn’t trust the people who are already looking for her to do the job right, we have Intel that he’s working on something with Dr. Helga Jace. But we’re as of yet unclear on what exactly that is.” It felt strange to slip back into this persona, this mask after two years of running away from it.

“So it’s a covert op,” Artemis says, arms crossed over her chest as her eyes scan the data on the holoscreens.

Dick nods. “Someone’s going to have to get close to him,” He says. Artemis grimaces, and Dick realizes that she might be getting the impression that she’s the one who’d have to do all the schmoozing. Arty had never really liked that sort of op, and he couldn’t blame her. Lying in a level that made you a different person, slipping into a character to get _close_ with a target wasn’t everyone’s forte. But Dick had been pretty good at it back in the day, and after two years he could only hope that he hadn’t lost his touch.

“There’s a gala at the end of this week, one which Dick Grayson happens to be invited to,” The original team knew who he was, hell the _team_ in general probably did after Bart had blurted it to beast boy and beasty boy had blurted it to- well everyone. “Oh, _Oh”_ Some of the tension in Artemis face over the possible future undercover mission melted away into concern. Regardless of how distant they were at the moment, Dick was still her friend. He’d still been Wally’s _best friend._ And Prince Brion was a wild card- they didn’t know whose side he was on yet. Seeing the blondes look of concern, Dick glances towards the picture of Brion and then back at the archer.

He gives her a small, reassuring smile. Or well, he tries. It comes out as more of a bitter quirk of the lips.

“Don’t worry,” He says, once again looking at the prince’s picture. “I’ve always had a thing for redheads.”

.

Green eyes and red (technically strawberry blonde) hair are about the only things that Prince Brion has in common with Wally. That and a love for science, but while Wally had always been more interested in physics and chemistry, Brion was fascinated with biology (specifically human biology including meta human biology) and geology. He was actually taller than Dick, with pale freckled skin, broad shoulders and legs for _days._ He was a combination of sharp as diamond and hot as hell and was _exactly_ the kind of guy who Dick liked to take home on those few occasions he does go out. As Brion leads him away from the party, a hand on the small of his back as they head towards his room- Dick reasons that _technically_ his mission is supposed to be getting close and personal with the target. So _technically_ , he’s doing his _job_.

(Bruce would be _so_ disappointed)

.

The next day, when he meets with Artemis to rendezvous with Kon, she doesn’t say anything about how he’s fifteen minutes late, or about how his hair is still messy or about the tiny red marks peeking out from beneath the collar of his shirt. She doesn’t _say_ anything, but he knows she knows (he wasn’t exactly hiding it anyway.)

Even as the day progresses, Artemis continues to say nothing and Dick is content to leave it that way.

.

But a few days later, after a particularly rough mission, they’re about to step into their separate rooms when she stops him. “Dick,” she says, and warning bells go off in the back of Nightwings skull. He turns to look at her, his face a carefully neutral mask. A default when his instincts tell him that shit is about to hit the fan. Her dark eyes seem to be trying to peer into his soul, and that unnerves him greatly because right now even _he_ doesn’t want to see what he’s like inside.

“Earlier-“ oh.

_Oh shit._

“-when you said you have -“ he can feel the mask slipping. He’s just so tiered. “-a thing for redheads-“

“It’s late, Artemis.” He says, cutting her off while turning away to unlock his door. His actions undoubtedly answer all her questions, and make the puzzle pieces from many years past fall into place. Dick sighs. It’s been a long day, and he’s not in the mood to talk about how he’s in love with his dead best friend with said dead best friends girlfriend/almost fiancé. He’s tiered. “You should get some rest.” Not letting her answer, he shuts the door behind him before leaning heavily against it and sliding to thaw floor.

He’s just so, _so_ tiered.

**Author's Note:**

> ....


End file.
